The Story of The Geeli Mitti Foundation

In 2017, while working with martial arts students at the Shaolin Gurukul near Nainital in Uttarakhand, Osho Kalia visited Geeli Mitti Farm and met Shagun Singh. Osho had been working for the previous two years to fight pollution from polythene bags while Shagun had been studying sustainable living techniques and hosting workshops to spread this knowledge. Both Osho and Shagun were using the momentum from their activism to teach life-changing skills to impoverished communities, women, and the differently abled. Amidst their shared passions for empowering people and healing the Earth through social change, the Geeli Mitti Foundation was born.

The Geeli Mitti Foundation was established to supply local communities with a means of income while teaching sustainable living practices in order to enact social change worldwide. When a community cultivates its connection to the Earth through permaculture farming, natural building, and eco-sustainability, it attracts tourism from all over the world, bringing economic prosperity to the people and abundance to the land.

Preaching about sustainable living solely for the good of planet Earth often falls on deaf ears, but showing people that these practices can earn them a better livelihood opens the door for communities to start on the path towards ecological awareness and conservation. This approach, along with the Geeli Mitti Foundation’s workshop-based programs, helps spread this knowledge to communities worldwide by attracting participants from across the globe.

Since the Geeli Mitti Foundation was started in 2017, it has hosted multiple natural building workshops, continued the campaign against polythene bags, and has established self-defense training programs for the differently abled. Founders Shagun Singh and Osho Kalia share the awareness that if they don’t take action, no one will. They share this awareness with everyone who comes through their doors. Their work is motivated by the vision that communities can come together and see the value of empowering themselves through education and sustainability while spreading their awareness, knowledge, and passion with eager students from all over the world.

Our Programs

No Polythene Bags!

Raising awareness

Providing alternative cloth bags

Teaching sustainable skills to women and prisoners

Community Outreach

Providing items of need to Kashmiri children

Building schools and education programs in slums

Teaching self defense to women and the differently abled

Environmental Conservation

Tree plantation drives

Natural building workshops

Natural farming techniques

Livelihood Training Center in Nainital

Serving 11 villages in reserve forest area

Economic empowerment through conservation and development

Teaching beekeeping and herbal product manufacturing

Training youth as trekking & birdwatching guides

Taxi drivers, shop owners, and local governments cooperated with Geeli Mitti Foundation to raise awareness on the dangers of polythene bag pollution.

To provide an alternative to polythene plastic bags, Geeli Mitti Foundation has provided training and equipment to women in communities across 6 states to stitch and sell cloth bags as a means of independent livelihood.

Osho Kalia and Shagun Singh have run self defense training programs for the differently abled and more than 35,000 women in India.

Shagun Singh teaches earth bag building techniques to slum children in Delhi, providing a critical life skill while promoting environmental awareness.

Osho Kalia brings new hats, gloves, and toys to militarized regions in Kashmir for children in need.